The village Lavtsi, the birthplace of Fani Kochovska, was a traditional village in the vicinity of the city of Bitola, many of whose residents worked abroad. The economic migrations of the locals, who worked in the western and transatlantic countries, brought back progressive ideas from the world’s latest movements. Soon after the birth of Fana, on July 27, 1927, her father set off for work abroad, which forced her to spend her childhood working in the fields. From the female members of her family, Fana was remembered as a feisty and vivacious young girl with a strong voice.
With the beginning of the Second World War, the village Lavtsi, due to its working class traditions, caught the attention of the occupation forces and became known as the “red village”. In 1941, many locals got directly involved in the partisan movement, and one of them, at the age of fourteen, was Fana. She joined the movement of her own volition, as a youth member of the communist cell, and in 1942, she became a fighter in a partisan detachment. Today in the center of Lavtsi, there is a monument dedicated to the locals who joined the resistance.
Fana participated in the fighting throughout Macedonia, and although she was wounded, she survived and in 1953 was awarded the Order of the People’s Hero – the youngest living people’s hero after the war. After the liberation of the country, she exercised high social and state offices and built a political career with remarkable accomplishments in the sphere of youth and educational policies. She died in Skopje on April 27, 2004. Her contemporaries remember her as a politician who always inspired and reminded the public officials to recall the beginnings of the movement and the values of the concern for the common welfare. It is important that she was the initiator and organizer of several youth cultural and educational manifestations of local and international character. Today at the City Park, a memorial bust is dedicated to her.
At public lectures and forums, she often emphasized that she was drawn to the partisan movement because of camaraderie and solidarity – in mountainous conditions of guerilla warfare, on two occasions she was saved by her band of fellow fighters.
City Park, Alley of the Busts of the Participants in the National Liberation Struggle, Bitola
In the center of Bitola, at the promenade leading to the City Park, at the Alley of the Fighters of the NLS is the memorial bust of Fana Kochovska. Every year, the residents of Bitola, organized by the Association of Fighters of the NLS and supporters of the anti-fascist traditions, lay flowers on the set date.